Friday, October 2, 2009

Breakfast meeting? No thank you

A recent article on AdAge.com, “Can We Ban the Breakfast Meeting?” got me thinking about about breakfast business meetings. For those of you who know me, I do not do breakfast meetings.

My last breakfast meeting was the most comical and disastrous but also the last straw that led me to ban breakfast meetings. I was approached by an executive who was interested in pitching his service to me. He scheduled the meeting himself for an early breakfast meeting. After arriving 15 minutes late, he apologized and asked me for my name. He plainly forgot who he was meeting. He yawned in the middle of his pitch about how great his company was in their ability provide world-class services. What made it even worse than forgetting my name was he kept forgetting my company name, I had to help him out a few time. He apologized profusely about being unclear because he was out late the night before.

Needless to say, we never worked with his company. For the folks out there trying to maximize your day by starting early, here are some simple rules of thumb when you are itching to book a breakfast meeting.

1) Are you a MORNING person? Is the person you are meeting a MORNING person?If you do not know your name or can not articulate a full comprehensive sentence, please do not book

2) If you are doing the pitch – please realize you might have to eat really fast or not eat at all unless you want your client’s shirt to end up with bits of your breakfast.

3) If you are doing the listening – will you be able to focus to listen or better yet make a logical analysis at this time in the morning?

Please think carefully before booking breakfast meetings, otherwise you might end up being an example for a blog post